Simferopol in blood and ruins: Why Crimea was saved a year ago
Svyatoslav Kompaniets, one of the founders
Popular Front Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia
Attempts to revise the key, decisive events for Crimea at the end of February last year make me, their eyewitness, remember that time.
I can firmly state that no Crimean self-defense or Sevastopol February rallies had a decisive influence on the subsequent reunification of Crimea with the Russian Federation. Everything was determined by the political decision of Moscow, personally of President Vladimir Putin. The countdown of the new Crimean history began precisely with the appearance of the tricolors of the Russian Federation on the buildings of the government and parliament of the autonomy on the night of February 27. It was in Simferopol, on this very day, that key events for the entire peninsula took place.
And earlier, on the 26th, there was a terrible day. We, Russians, residents of Simferopol and Sevastopol, who came to a peaceful rally in the “nut” of the Supreme Council, lost the confrontation with supporters of the Majlis and Ukrainian militants who used military gas. I remember that day almost every minute - already in the morning the city center was shaking from the cries of “Allahu Akbar” and Bandera chants. Approaching the aircraft in the morning, we met thousands of Crimean Tatars, and this did not bode well. Having walked to the square inside the parliamentary “nut”, we saw several Russian tricolors and Crimean flags closer to the entrance to the building.
At first there were very few Russians, but little by little the Simferopol residents began to come in a continuous stream. It seemed that the whole city was gathering on the streets of Zhukovsky and Karl Marx. Not only men were walking - girls, teenagers, elderly townspeople, no one knew that the opponents came with bottles of acid, and the poles of the Majlis flags were shovel handles pointed at the bottom, with which they would mercilessly beat people.
When they learned that several buses with Sevastopol residents had arrived at the rally, the mood rose. And indeed, in a couple of hours, Russian activists significantly pushed back Kyiv’s supporters, winning a significant space inside the site. But the crush was terrible. In the afternoon, guys with broken faces and bloody clothes began to be carried out from the first rows of Russians. At one of the tense moments, shouts were heard: “Where is this Aksenov self-defense, where are all these companies?”
The moment came when it seemed - here it is, victory, a little more, and the platform will be ours, the cowardly Crimean parliament will hold a session that it could not decide on all the days after Yanukovych fled from Kyiv. However, everything changed after military gas was used against the Russians - people literally fell from the site. A few minutes later, an explosion was heard in front of the entrance to parliament.
For some time everyone was at a loss, the mood was depressed. After the breakthrough of his militants into the Armed Forces, Chubarov unexpectedly disbanded them, and they quickly and organizedly left the scene of the clashes. Simferopol residents began to disperse, Sevastopol residents boarded buses and left. The ambulances that arrived at Zhukovsky did not add optimism - rumors spread about those killed in clashes and stampedes. Attempts, including mine, to encourage the townspeople to stay were unsuccessful. People, even if they turned around, still left en masse. And who will succeed again? - to gather a huge Russian action under the walls of the then critically important parliament of the autonomy - this raised great doubts...
Around XNUMX p.m., a couple of hundred people returned to the site. Everyone crowded again at the entrance to parliament, but the smell of defeat was in the air. They were waiting for something. The leader of the Crimean KUN, Vasily Ovcharuk, calmly walked through the ranks of the Russians with some short guys in meningitis boots - with Slavic faces, but clearly not of the Crimean appearance. “They were poisoning me,” I thought then.
Vile, insidious, but the enemies of the Russian Crimea broke the stubborn civil resistance of Simferopol and Sevastopol on February 26. The picture of the upcoming double blow - the Right Sector from the north and the Mejlis in the back - has become extremely clear. We just saw his dress rehearsal.
And the fact that Crimea, without the help of Russia, would be able to withstand this difficult situation, personally seemed unlikely to me in those moments. Sevastopol, due to its geographical location, perhaps could have lasted a little longer as autonomy, but in general the forces and the situation were clearly not in our favor. For another two months after that, the image of burned Simferopol, the ruins of buildings and streets that had been familiar for years, and scenes of massacres in the homes of Crimean residents obsessively appeared in my brain.
But no one was going to give up: in the evening, young people began to surround parliament with barricades and warm themselves near the barrels. The guys decided to stand until the end. “I’m Russian, that’s why I came here,” a guy from Lugansk told me. It was then that a homemade poster “CrimeaRussia” appeared, which later spread around the world media.
And early in the morning a miracle happened - the state flags of the Russian Federation rose above the buildings of the Armed Forces and the Council of Ministers of Crimea. Many perceived this as a provocation from Kyiv, phones were ringing off the hook, Simferopol residents rushed to the parliament cordoned off by police, and Crimean deputies began to fuss. During the day, the Russian column, breaking through the police cordon, approached the Armed Forces.
I remember it was scary and fun at the same time; a letter from the useless Yankovic was foolishly read out to those gathered.
The very next morning, young digital machine gunners appeared in the center of Simferopol, and people welcomed them. As a reserve officer, I’ll emphasize that these were army men, not Crimean self-defense. Free, endless rallies began again under the walls of the Armed Forces, and now no one could gas Crimeans, beat them with sharpened sticks, or throw containers of acid at them. Supporters of the Majlis – both “peaceful” and “non-peaceful” – instantly disappeared from the streets of Simferopol. Now they, together with their Ukrainian “brothers,” turned into mourners of democracy and armed themselves with white balloons.
On that cold February Thursday, we were freed from 22 years of occupation, the threat of Russian genocide disappeared - thank you, Russia!
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